


Like A Good Kouhai

by mmmdraco



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps Inui was a closer friend than Kaidoh thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Good Kouhai

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.

Like a good kouhai, Kaidoh Kaoru respected his elders and did his best to be a good role model for those younger than him. The problem, then, came with the people who were the same age as he was. The people in his class found him standoffish and unfriendly, sometimes even scary, and he kept to himself because he wasn't sure how to address these people. He could converse with the honor students because they deserved respect. He could converse with the punks because they respected him (something which utterly confused him). Momo, because they were on the tennis team together, was a sort of rival and he could only find his way to argue with him. Perhaps they might some day have a conversation, but Kaidoh wouldn't be the one to start it.

When Kaidoh had first joined the Seigaku tennis team, he used the proper language with everyone. He was a freshman, so he had only to be respectful and that was that. No one was close enough to him (except Momo) to be a problem. Then, along came Inui.

In truth, Inui had been there all along, and that was part of the problem. He had intentionally gotten close to Kaidoh and become... a partner. Kaidoh didn't know how to not argue with Momo (whom he usually disagreed with) and also didn't know how to not argue with Inui (whom he usually agreed with). It was a profound difference. When he told Momo "No" he meant it. When he told Inui "No" he usually meant, "Maybe yes, but let me think about it first". Thankfully, Inui usually recognized a real "No" from a maybe "No". But that didn't mean he always listened.

Kaidoh supposed his English was relatively good, or at least in comparison to a vast majority of his fellow tennis team members (except for Inui, Fuji, and of course Ryoma). He supposed this because Ryoma sometimes spoke to him in English. He usually understood the words, but a lot of the phrases were idioms that he had to go look up. When Ryoma referred to one of his fights with Inui as a "lover's spat", he looked it up in English class and blushed. But, of course, that set the ball rolling.

When Kaidoh fought with anyone after that, he compared it to how he fought with Inui. He fought with his little brother, Hazue, but it usually involved food or who got to watch television. They weren't harsh arguments at all, but they weren't much other than minor disagreements settled with hisses and loud voices. Momo was a moron, so it almost felt like hitting a dog with a rolled-up newspaper to reprimand it... only without the affection. He never fought with his parents. He fought with Eiji about the best kind of toothpaste, but that was more of a spirited debate.

Inui... was something all together different. Together, they had philisophical discussions and planned new training menus. Inui would talk about juice and Kaidoh would listen because if he listened long enough, a kitten usually appeared in Inui's story. It also helped keep him training hard -- when he knew what was in Inui Juice, he wanted to drink it even less.

Perhaps Inui was a closer friend than Kaidoh thought. He obviously knew about Kaidoh's love for all small, fluffy things except marshmallows. (He had a bit of a sweet tooth, but marshmallows were *too* sweet.) Inui had made him hot chocolate in the chemistry lab after practice one day. The mix had marshmallows in it, but Inui had filtered them all out. He told Kaidoh they were for use in his next Inui Juice and hoped he didn't mind their absence. The next exercise favored Kaidoh's abilities, but he failed on purpose and drank the juice. It didn't have a hint of sweetness. Kaidoh remembered wondering what had happened to the marshmallows. Kaidoh came back to his thoughts and decided that a different line of thinking was in order.

However, Kaidoh's thoughts kept going back to his feelings. He realized that he kept thinking about Inui (a male of the species) in contrast to his feelings for other males. While his mother was female, he had never argued with her, and couldn't compare. Besides, he had argued with Oishi who was very much like his mother sometimes, and that wasn't anything like what he felt for Inui at all. Kaidoh needed another variable.

The girls in his class didn't generally come near him, but he was fine with that. They gossiped and spent money on useless things... on top of the fact that Kaidoh could rarely understand their actions. They were all strikes.

Then, there was Ryuuzaki-sensei's granddaughter and her friend... but where one was spineless and weak, the other was cheerful and annoying. Neither of them inspired much in Kaidoh's thoughts but derision. Kaidoh didn't really know many older girls or young women except for Fuji's sister, and the female reporter who drooled over Tezuka and Ryoma. Still, there was nothing there. He could certainly ascertain their aesthetic value, but not their emotional value.

And, again, there was Inui. He knew how to cook to a certain degree. He knew *how* to clean, even if he sometimes forgot to if he didn't write it down right when he thought of it. He liked quiet conversations rather than shouted ones, tennis, hot chocolate, and kittens. Perhaps he should take a hint from Inui -- this called for an experiment.

The next day, at morning practice, Kaidoh dropped all formalities with Inui and only Inui. He spoke directly to him, stated his thoughts without thinking (much) about them first, and even corrected Inui on a particular fact. Inui, to Kaidoh's surprise, looked delighted.

At afternoon practice, Kaidoh continued to do as he had that morning. Inui smiled more and offered longer replies to Kaidoh's suddenly more-frequent comments and questions. After practice, Inui asked Kaidoh out for ice cream.

Kaidoh promptly turned him down, then invited him over to his house. Inui scribbled something in the pages of his notebook, smiled, and agreed.

If Kaidoh seemed reluctant to change in front of everyone for several days, it wasn't mentioned, especially in light of the fact that a happy Kaidoh Kaoru looked even scarier than a pissed off one.


End file.
